Alexander Graham Bell – Quote Investigator®

Helen Keller? Alexander Graham Bell? Johann P. F. Richter? Miguel de Cervantes? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: A venerable adage emphasizes the desirability of retaining a positive outlook and flexibility. Plans always encounter difficulties, and a successful person must be able to adapt. Here are two instances of a proverb that employs doorways figuratively:

When one door shuts, another opens.
When one door closes, another opens.

An addendum to this saying highlights the danger of inaction. Here are two versions:

We should not look so intently and so sorrowfully upon the closed door that we do not see the newly open door.
We should not look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we miss the door that has opened.

Sayings in this family have been ascribed to blind social activist Helen Keller, telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell, German Romantic writer Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, and eminent Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes. Would you please examine this topic?

Quote Investigator: The “Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs” has an entry for the six-word adage listing the following two early citations. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:^[1]2015, Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, (Sixth edition), Edited by Jennifer Speake, Entry: “When ONE door shuts, another opens”, Publisher: Oxford University Press. (Accessed via Oxford … Continue reading

When one door shuts, another opens

1586 D. ROWLAND tr. Lazarillo D3V This proverbe was fulfild, when one doore is shut the other openeth.

1620 T. SHELTON tr. Cervantes’ Don Quixote iii. vii. Where one door is shut another is opened.

The first citation refers to an English translation of an influential picaresque Spanish novella titled “La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades” with an anonymous author published by 1554. The second citation refers to an English translation of the famous comic novel “Don Quixote de la Mancha” by Miguel de Cervantes dated 1605 for the first part and 1615 for the second part in Spanish.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading When One Door Closes Another Opens, But Often We Look So Long Upon the Closed Door That We Do Not See the Open Door

References

References
↑1	2015, Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, (Sixth edition), Edited by Jennifer Speake, Entry: “When ONE door shuts, another opens”, Publisher: Oxford University Press. (Accessed via Oxford Reference Online)

Alexander Graham Bell? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: The brilliant inventor Alexander Graham Bell helped to create the first practical telephone. He is often credited with the following inspiring statement:

Don’t keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before, and something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought.

There are many variants of this exhortation, but none appears to be definitive. Here is a variant using a very different vocabulary:

Refrain from always following a predestined path for it only leads where others have already walked.

The industrious volunteers at Wikiquote have listed multiple versions. I was unable to find a direct citation to the writings of Bell, so I became cautious. Also, the earliest evidence I could locate was dated 1947, yet Bell died in 1922. Could you clarify this situation?

Quote Investigator: On May 22, 1914 Alexander Graham Bell delivered an address to the graduating class of the Friends’ School in Washington D.C. His words were published in the June 1914 issue of “The National Geographic Magazine”. In a section of his speech titled “Out of the Beaten Track” Bell described an experience which he employed as a metaphorical theme for his discourse:^[1]1914 June, The National Geographic Magazine, Volume 25, Number 6, Discovery and Invention by Alexander Graham Bell, (Address to the graduating class of the Friends’ School in Washington D.C. by … Continue reading

I was walking along the road one day in my country place in Nova Scotia, when the idea occurred to leave the beaten track and dive into the woods. Well, I had not gone 50 feet before I came upon a gully, and down at the bottom was a beautiful little stream. I never knew of it before.

After describing the stream Bell elaborated on the lesson of this incident. The modern quotations are primarily derived from the text below. Boldface has been added to show the phrases in the original question above:

We are all too much inclined, I think, to walk through life with our eyes shut. There are things all round us and right at our very feet that we have never seen, because we have never really looked.

Don’t keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone and following one after the other like a flock of sheep. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all round it: one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.

It is common for pithier quotations to be constructed by a streamlining process in which words, phrases, and sentences are omitted from a longer passage as a quote evolves.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Don’t Keep Forever on the Public Road. Leave the Beaten Track Behind Occasionally and Dive Into the Woods

References

References
↑1	1914 June, The National Geographic Magazine, Volume 25, Number 6, Discovery and Invention by Alexander Graham Bell, (Address to the graduating class of the Friends’ School in Washington D.C. by Alexander Graham Bell on May 22, 1914), Start Page 649, Quote Page 650, Published by National Geographic Society. (Google Books full view) link